I feltinstinctively that the four major sanctioning bodies were very successful companies when it came to growth. They are “companies”. Income and expenditure has to be controlled, employees have to be paid, business is conducted on an international basisand there is competition from the other sanctioning bodies. They are companies with just one major source of income and that is sanctioning fees for their title fights. When I was a lad there were only eight divisions(no I don’t remember bare knuckles and knee britches so don’t ask) and generally one universally recognised champion in each division with Ring Magazine the accepted gospel on who those champions were. The first big change came when a world-wide coalition of boxing movers and shakers became so angered at the machinations of the WBA that they met and supported the set up the WBC.After that with no improvement in the way the WBA conducted its affairs a break-away group set up the IBF and later another group of people and organisations dissatisfied with the WBA set up the WBO. Now we had four bodies who in order to survive had to take money out of the pockets of promoters and boxers so effectively out of boxing. These bodies quickly realised that sanctioning fees from world title fights alone was not enough for them to sustain or grow their organisations. Even increasing the number of weight divisions from eight eventually to seventeen was not enough so like any business that sees its single product (world titles) is not bringing in enough money you have to diversify (create more title). At one time you might have described the proliferation of titles as a cottage industry but it seemed to me it has developed from there into a production line with new titles manufactured with a frequency that Ford Motors might envy. But was my instinct right or my perception false? I decided to do a check as to whether the proliferation activities were as rampant as I thought they were.​At the high end of the market there are still world titles but they have not been spared proliferation. We now have Super titles, plain old World titles, Regular titles (and that is a misnomer if ever there was one) and Interim titles and some champions have been labelled Champion in Recess, Champion Emeritus. Whilst I can make some kind of weird sense about those Super etc. I have no idea what the WBC Diamond title is and the WBA have switched Arsen Goulamirian from interim champion to Gold champion whatever that means.

The IBF so far have stuck with one world champion and are to be congratulated for that so they have 17 titles, The WBA list Super, regular and Interim so if we ignore their Gold then they have 51 tiles, the WBC have World and Interim and if we ignore their Diamond they have 34 and the WBO also has World and Interim so another 34. We have gone from 8 world titles to 136 world titles. That’s proliferation.

Since their first title fight in 1983 there have been 1,312 fights with the IBF title involved. For the WBA, since the split off by the WBC in 1962 there have been 2049 fights involving a WBA world title. Since 1962 there have been 2003 fights involving the WBC title and since their birth in 1988 1,134 fights involving the WBO title although many of the fights above involved unification of the titles.

The real growth industry has been in the area of the various Regional titles such as Inter-Continental, Latino, Asia Pacific, WBO European (I differentiate from the EBU as their titles are nothing to do with the WBC), International, North American etc. The IBF has 14 titles of this nature, The WBA has 11, the WBC has 26 and the WBO has 15. With 17 divisions involved that means there are now 1,132 titles which did not exist until the sanctioning bodies set the production line going at full throttle and don’t even let me get started on the IBO, WBFederation, WBFoundation, Global Boxing Council, Global Boxing Union, Universal Boxing Federation etc. and for all of the above in theory you also have female titles!

If the above has done nothing for you then for me it tells me that my perception and reality are in agreement and if I am dumb enough to write another piece like this in a year’s time there will even more titles and title fights-it’s what growth industries do.

It’s a relief to see that the WBSS is still alive. The 27 April show featuring Regis Prograis vs. Kiryl Relikh in the super light semi-final and Nonito Donaire vs. Zolani Tete bantam semi-final has no venue yet but having a date is good news after all of the uncertainty. In the other semi-finals in Glasgow on 18 May both the Josh Taylor vs. Ivan Baranchyk IBF title fight and the Emmanuel Rodriguez vs. Naoya Inouebantam match(it can’t be a unification fight as Inoue only holds the secondary WBA title) are the sort of clashes that made the first WBSS such a success.

French heavyweight Tony Yoka is coming to the end of a one year suspension for dodging four tests. There are already names being put forward for him with former WBC title challenger Johann Duhaupas on the list but it looks as though that will not happen until later in the year.

Artur Beterbiev will defend his IBF light heavy title against Swede Sven Fornling in Stockton on 4 May. There had been talk of Beterbiev fighting on a show in Moscow in April sharing the top billing with Murat Gassiev who will by then have fully recovered from the shoulder injury that has kept him out of the ring since losing to Oleg Usyk in July.

Great show being put together for Inglewood on 26 April. WBC super fly champion Srisaket and Juan Francisco Estrada will clash again as Estrada seeks to get revenge for his loss to Srisaket in February 2018 and WBA super bantam champion Daniel Roman and IBF champion JT Doheny face each other in a unification match with Scott Quigg and Jesse Vargas also on the show.

According to some sources by beating Bermane Stiverne Joy Joyce won a WBA eliminator and could fight Manuel Charr for the secondary WBA title later this year. As Stiverne is a former world champion there was some interest in how Joyce would handle him but that the WBA saw a 40-year-old fat and out of condition Stiverne who had not fought for 15 months and seen less than three minute ring time in over three years as a suitable guy to fight in a world title eliminator is up to their usual standards. It seems that the mandated fight for Charr to defend against Fres Oquendo- who has not fought since July 2014-is no longer mandated. That’s good news for Joyce as he would start as favourite against Charr who last fought in November 2017. Charr was given a derisory six month ban after testing positive for two banned substances. Compare that to Tony Yoka who was banned for a year for avoiding tests so never tested positive with Charr who tested positive for two banned substances only banned for six months.

Filipino Donnie Nietes has his sights set on some attractive matches and obviously feels that he does not want anything to stand in the way of those hopes so has withdrawn from the purse bidding for a defence of his WBO flyweight title against Aston Palicte and has relinquished the title. It would be interesting to see Nietes fight IBF champion and fellow Filipino Jerwin Ancajas but Ancajas has agreed to defend his title against his mandatory challenger Ryuichi Funai.

Badou jack is staying in the boxing business. The former WBC super middle champion and holder of the secondary WBA light heavy title is setting up his own promoting company out in Dubai with 3 May the projected date for his first show.

Recent purses saw Leo Santa Cruz reportedly getting $1 million for fighting Rafael Rivera, Gervonta Davis collecting $1 million for his defence against Hugo Ruiz with Ruiz picking up $100,000. On the Santa Cruz undercard Omar Figueroa was paid $225, 000 and John Molina $200,000 for their fight and on the undercard to Davis vs. Ruiz Mario Barrios , Sharif Bogere and Ishe Smith received $75,000 each with Erickson Lubin paid $41,400 and Javier Fortuna $40,000. Good money but if it was doable Santa Cruz and Davis would be looking to more than double their payments.

​It looks as though Anthony Joshua’s first fight in the USA will be against Jarrell Miller in New York on 1 June and confirmation of that is imminent. Reportedly Joshua’s purse will be his highest yet at $32 million. The WBC pushed the date for the purse bids for Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury back to 12 February with the parties said to be near to reaching an agreement. If the purse bidding does go ahead it will be interesting to see whether, as has been claimed, Wilder vs. Fury is a bigger fight. It is to the credit of the fighters and the Wilder/Fury people if they can come to an agreement in such a relatively short time.

With the possibility of Derek Chisora vs. Joseph Parker, Dillian Whyte vs. Dominic Breazeale on the cards, Joe Joyce vs. Bermane Stiverne on 23 February and Daniel Dubois and Nathan Gorman all scheduled to fight in the next two monthsI can’t remember the last time there was so much happening for British heavyweights. Definitely not the “horizontal heavyweights” of the past.

It is not just British heavyweights keeping busy with Agit Kabayel 18-0 defending the European title against Andriy Rudenko 32-3 on 2 March in Magdeburg and fellow SES heavyweight unbeaten Tom Schwarz 23-0 facing 17-1 Croatian Kristijan Krstacic on the same show. With Alex Povetkin likely to return to action in April and Kubrat Pulev facing Robert Helenius in the USA on 23 March (but that may fall through as the main event was to be Miguel Berchelt defending the WBC super feather title against Francisco Vargas and that fight has had to be put back to May due to Berchelt injuring his left hand) Romanianheavyweight Christian Hammer goingwhere others fear to tread by taking on Luis Ortiz on 2 March it is a busy time for the heavyweights.

The WBSS is still limping along. It is a bit like a wounded animal-is it going to be able to limp safely to the end of the current roundsinvolving the cruiserweights, super lightweights and bantamweights or is it fatally wounded and destined to die out?It has been announced that the cruiserweight semi-final between Krzys Glowacki and Mairis Breidis will take place in Riga, Latvia, on 15 June but no date or venue yet for Yunier Dorticos vs. Andrew Tabiti. At super light Josh Taylor vs. Ivan Baranchyk has an 18 May date in Glasgow but no information yet available for Regis Prograis vs. Kiryl Relikh. At bantamweight nothing advised for Zolani Tete vs. Nonito Donaire or Naoya Inoue vs. Emmanuel Rodriguez. The quarter finals were held in October so you are looking at a gap of seven and eight months between even those fights already scheduled. It is encouraging that a couple of the six semi-finals have a date but the longer it is before the other four are schedules the more it looks like the wound is fatal.

Gilbert Ramirez has thrown his hat into the light-heavyweight mix indicating he is targeting Sergey Kovalev and it is a sensible move as there is very little for him in staying at super middle as the WBO ratings offer very little for Ramirez in the way of a challenge. In another move he is reported to have changed his manager and his trainer.

Rob Brant is set to make the first defence of the secondary WBA middleweight title on 15 February in Hinckley against unbeaten 17-0 Russian Khasan Baysangurov. Brant will be back in his home State of Minnesota where he turned pro and had most of his early fights.

Originally set for 6 February the WBA have reset the date for purse offers for three of their titles. Bids were due for Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Anthony Crolla at lightweight, Beibut Shumenov vs. Arsen Goulamirian at cruiser and Daniel Roman vs. Murodjon Akhmadaliev at bantam but they have delayed the purse opening to 13 February. You can be sure Top Rank will decide who Lomachenko fights in April and not the WBA. Shumenov vs. Goulamirian will be between their secondary champion and their gold champion as they continue to try to sort out the mess they made by having more champions than titles. They solved the Denis Lebedev problem by just making him disappear. As he is not in their ratings he is probably back in the recess they put him in before. You can be sure that the gold title they invented for Goulamirian will not disappear because there are sanctioning fees to be made from it. There was a faint hope that Roman might be allowed to fight IBF champion TJ Doheny in a unification fight but that looks unlikely.

Roman vs. Murodjon Akhmadaliev? If you have never heard of Murodjon Akhmadaliev let me say that he was a top level amateur but has only been a professional for less than a year. How did he become the WBA No 1 super bantamweight? Well this is another case where paying the sanctioning fee for one of their obscure minor titles can reap such rich rewards. After three six round fights in August last year Akhmadaliev beat world No 266 Ramon Contreras from Chile for the WBA Inter-Continental title and was parachuted into the WBA ratings at No 6. In November be beat Isaac Zarate rated No 66 or 70, depending on which independent ratings you go by, and beating the No 66/70 was enough for Akhmadaliev to rise to the No 1 spot in the WBA ratings. That abomination makes a complete mockery of the very principles that should underpin ratings. In the WBA ratings a sanctioning fee trumps a win over a rated opponent every time.

Olek Gvozdyk will put his WBC light heavyweight title on the line against Doudou Ngumbu in Philadelphia on March 30. It seems that Adonis Stevenson who had to be put in an induced come after losing the WBC title to Gvozdyk is making slow progress but it is progress. At the start of the year he was able to speak for the first time since being hospitalised and at the end of last month he took his first unaided steps. He has a long journey and I amsure he will tackle it with the same dedication and courage he showed as a fighter. That is one journey he won’t have to make unaided as his family his team at Group Yvon Michel and his fans will all be supporting him. If Gvozdyk gets past Ngumbu there will be pressure for him to fight Marcus Browne who beat Badou Jack in a final eliminator.

Miguel Cotto is going to be busy this year. On March his fighter Alberto Machado defends his WBA super featherweight title against Andrew Cancio and he has said that he plans to have ten shows in Puerto Rico to develop more talent.With Saul Alvarez set to fight Daniel Jacobs in a unification match on 4 May in Las Vegas it is obvious that the secondary WBA super middle title will fall vacant. British fighter John Ryder is rated No 1 by the WBA with Fedor Chudinov No 2 and Chris Eubank Jr No 3 Chudinov would seem the most likely opponent although there has been a suggestion that David Lemieux could be in the other corner against Ryder.

The AIBA are fighting it but it seems that the IOC’s decision to cut the number of divisions to be competed for at the Olympics is going to stand. It is a blow to the lower divisions. The weight divisions will be: 52kg, 57kg,63kg, 69kg, 75kg, 81kg, 91kg and +91kg. That means that instead of the four lighter divisions 49kg, 52kg, 56kg and 60kgthere will now only be two divisions in that range. That will be blow to the little guys as they will all have to compete at a higher weight than in the past. That will mean a natural 49kg fighter having to compete in his national qualifiers at 52kg. It also means that there will be fewer medals available and often national funding is based on medals won previously or potential returns. It is yet another blow to boxing at the Olympics.

The Oubaali’s are another of boxing’s fighting families. Not surprising in their case. Nordine who won the WBC bantamweight title last month is the 13th of the 18 children in the family. Elder brother Ali lost only three of his 29 fights but unfortunately they were all in title fights. Now younger brother Messaoud is turning pro with his first bout scheduled for April. Ali and Nordine founded and run a gym in Deauviller with Olympic champion Estelle Mossely being one of their discoveries.

There are still rumours of a return to action by Marcos Maidana. A few weeks back he seemed to indicate he was about to return but then he indicated he was only joking. Now he says there have been people talking about fights for him and he is training. What is certain is that Omar Narvaez will return to the ring. Now 43 he is targeting March for his first fight.

Manny Pacquiao once again illustrated his drawing power with his fight against Adrien Broner reportedly drawing 400,000+ PPVhits. Not the sort of figures he was drawing at his peak but still a very high return. He was guaranteed $10 million for this fight but will obviously earn a great deal more when the final figures for the gate etc. are taken into account. It is incredible to think that the wonder fighter from the Philippines won his first world title more than 20 years ago. He is 18-4-2 in world title fights and at 40 is still performing at the highest level. Surely one of the most remarkable fighters in the history of boxing. It’s a pity that this was for the secondary WBA title not the real title. The real champion Keith Thurman returns with a title defence this weekend. As for Broner he showed just how delusional he is as he was convinced he had won a fight where he threw less punches, landed less punches and rarely took a step forward. He has entertained in the past but it may be that his days as deserving of PPV status are over.

Of course the talk immediately turned to another fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr but it was stated that Mayweather was retired and was not interested in another fight with Pacquiao-but don’t rule it out.

Why should Mayweather take on Pacquiao when he can earn $10 million for blowing away a 20-year-old Japanese kick boxer/MMA fighter Tenshin Nasukawa in less than three minutes. The most amazing thing is that people actually paid to see this farce. It brought to mind something that happened a good few years ago. I went with my wife to see the irreverent and slightly mad comic genius Spike Milligan in a play. It was still the tradition then that the national anthem was played after every cinema and stage performance and you stood throughout the anthem. As the play finished there seemed to be no sign of the national anthem being played so we hesitantly got to our feet ready to leave. At that point Milligan emerged from behind the curtain ina scruffy overcoat and flat cap carrying a tin whistle. He proceeded to give a reedy wavering version of the anthem on the tin whistle. We were undecided. Ok it was the national anthem but being played on a tin whistle. However tradition ruled and we stood until Milligan finished. He looked at us, shook his head and said “If you’ll stand for that you’ll stand for anything”! That’s how I feel about those who paid for Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor and Tenshin Nasukawa.

Whilst the heavyweight division is currently focused on who Anthony Joshua will fight in April and the return match between Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury the shadow of Oleg Usyk hangs over the division. The unbeaten Ukrainian will have his next outing in the USA on either the 18th or 25th of May but no opponent nominated yet. Surely Usyk will fight for the heavyweight title later this year.

From the sublime to the ridiculous. The WBA have ordered Manuel Charr to defend their secondary heavyweight title against Fres Oquendo. They were to have fought in September last year but Charr tested positive for a banned substance and the fright was cancelled. Initially Charr was suspended but not stripped off his title. There was no indication Charr intended to have a representative present for the testing of his B sample but he challenged that fact that he did not have someone there for the B test. The WBA backed off and as Charr was clean in subsequent tests-and he would have to have been stupid not to be-the WBA decided that his suspension had expired and he could return provided he defended against Oquendo within 60 days and the winner of that fight must fight the winner of a fight between their interim champion Trevor Bryan and Jarrell Miller even though there is no indication that a fight between Bryan and Miller will take place. Oquendo of course has not fought since July 2014. The Charr vs. Oquendo fight is now set for 23 March in Cologne. Thought I would give you date and place so that you could ensure you were somewhere else doing something else that night.

German heavyweight Michael Wallisch also gave a positive test after his losing effort against Christian Hammer in December and no news yet over his B sample. That fight was a farce. In the fourth round their heads collided and Wallisch went down and the referee counted him out. A 30 or 45 days suspension from fighting for the knockout? No instead they decided Wallisch should not have been counted out so they pretended the original fourth round never happened and restarted the fight with another fourth round and Wallisch was counted out again in the fifth! Hammer’s reward is a date with Luis Ortiz in New York on 2 March.

The Saul Alvarez vs. Daniel Jacobs fights looks a really attractive one. Jacobs is a totally different fighter style-wise to Gennady Golovkin and it is a fight Jacobs could win. It looks as though David Lemieux may also appear on the 4 May show. The Canadian will be fighting for the first time since he fainted from dehydration which led to his fight with Tureano Johnson being cancelled

Jose Ramirez’s defence of his WBC super lightweight title against Jose Zepeda also looks a good one. Ramirez is 23-0 and making the second defence of his title. Zepeda is 30-1 with the loss coming when he dislocated his shoulder in a fight against Terry Flanagan for the vacant WBO lightweight title in 2015. On the same show Ray Beltran will be having his first fight since losing his WBO lightweight title to Jose Pedraza in August. He meets the 19-0 Hiroki Okada and in a featherweight ten Genisis Servania 32-1 faces 21-0 Carlos Castro. Ramirez will be auctioning some items of his boxing equipment to raise funds for a Community Cancer Institute which is a great gesture.

I said that Broner was delusional but Don King seems to be going the same way. He is warning what Bermane Stiverne will do to English heavyweight hope Joe Joyce when they meet in London on the undercard to the exciting James DeGale vs. Chris Eubank Jr fight on 23 February. Let’s be clear this is a 40-year-old vastly overweight fighter who is having his first fight since being floored three times and stopped inside a round by Deontay Wilderin November 2017. King can talk a fight up but can Stiverne still walk the talk?

Interested in money? Of course. Lou DiBella won the bidding for the Jack Culcay vs. Sergiy Derevyanchenko final eliminator for the IBF title. DiBella ‘s bid was $425,515 and as Culcay is the higherof the two in the IBF ratings he gets 65% $276,000 and Derevyanchenko 35% $148,930. I can’t see Culcay winning this one.

Two fights had to be scrubbed from the undercard of the Pacquiao vs. Broner show when Filipino Jhack Tepora and Nicaraguan Carlos Buitrago came in ridiculously over the contract weights. Tepora was 5.5lbs over and Buitrago 6lbs over. It must have been obvious well in advance of the day of the weigh in that they would never make the weight but somehow no one spotted this so one fight was cancelled and the other saw a last minute substitute step in. Surely some check weights would have revealed this earlier. The WBC recently announced a number of initiatives to combat this very thing by laying out a complete weight check schedule to be followed. As it stated that for this to work they needed the collaboration of the promoters, manager, trainers etc. and without that it is just a very good idea with little hope of it being taken on board which is a great pity but at least the WBC are trying to tackle the problem which no one else appears to be doing.

With his victory over Badou Jack Marcus Browne became the fourth member of the US Team at the 2012 Olympics to win a version of a world title alongside Errol Spence, Jose Ramirez and Rau’shee Warren. Not bad for a team that failed to win a single medal and with Spence being the only one to get as far as the quarter-finals. In addition from the team Dominic Breazeale, Mike Hunter, Terrell Gausha and Joseph Diaz have challenged for world titles leaving Jamal Herring as the sole member not to win or challenge for a title and he is 19-2 with three good wins in 2018 so it is still possible that he will join the others in fight for or winning a title. It will be interesting to see what happens with the Class of 2016 where Shakur Stevenson’s silver was the only medal in male boxing the USA won in Rio. From the above it appears that the USA does not know how to produce medal winners in Olympic boxing but can turn under-achieving amateurs into professional champions.​Somehow it just doesn’t seem fair. A few years back in the AIBA World Series of Boxing the British Lionhearts found themselves facing the Ukrainian Otamans. The Ukrainian team won 4-1 but then it was fairly strong it contained Vasyl Lomachenko, Oleg Usyk and Olek Gvozdyk!

Difficult decision this week on who to vote for as my favourite man/people. The candidates are UFC President Dana White and the Board of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Difficult choice. White has to be a strong candidate for saying that if the Floyd Mayweather Jr vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov fight does come off it should be a UFC fight and not a boxing match. He is a candidate for making that statement and will do boxing a big favour if he sticks to that. Of course he can’t force it to be a UFC fight but hopefully his resistance to another boxing match will prove enough to end the speculation that this fight could take place. Mayweather is a genius inside the ring but hopefully, whilst no genius out of the ring still mart enough to realise he could be seriously injured in the cage and we will have dodged another farce. Go for it Dana.

The CAS has given Olympic boxing a lifeline by ordering the AIBA to allow Serik Konakbayev to be a candidate in this week’s presidential election. If interim president Gafur Rahimov had been the sole candidate there is every chance that the Olympic Committee would banish boxing from the Olympics. It is ridiculous that without this court action Rahimov, who is on the US Department of the Treasury’s sanctions list “for providing material support “ to a criminal organisation would have lead such a high profile sports body. You only have to look at the list of current world champions to see the important part Olympic competition has played. Deontay Wilder, Anthony Joshua, Oleg Usyk, Artur Beterbiev, Demetrius Andrade, Gary Russell, Errol Spence, Vasyl Lomachenko, Isaac Dogboe, Khalid Yafai and Jose Pedraza were all Olympians. Of course there will still be amateur boxing even if the sport is not an Olympic sport but there must be a huge question over government support to boxing where the return in Olympic medals is a big factor in the support and sponsorship money given to the sport. My fear is that having been pig-headed enough to try to push Rahimov through as a sole candidate many AIBA delegates will react badly to having their plan foiled and vote Rahimov in just to thumb their noses at the CAS and the US Department of Treasury.

It is the next round of the WBSS super lights and bantams this weekend. The competition is already producing some great action and the Josh Taylor vs. Ryan Martin and Ryan Burnett vs. Nonito Donaire fights have the potential to be every bit as entertaining. The WBSS really is making a big impact and they are proving that the fights are more important than any title. With the WBSS in control of the various matches it is taking much of the decision making on who fights for what title and against whom out of the control of the sanctioning bodies but they all want to be associated with it so are playing along and basking in whatever glory comes out. All our own work? No none of your work Mr Sanctioning Body.

The next round of the WBSS cruiser tournament takes place in Chicago on 10 November. It will see the tournament favourite Mairis Breidis face Noel Gevor, or Noel Mikaeljin as he now seems to prefer to be known, and Krzys Glowacki against Maksim Vlasov. They are both very good fights between highly rated fighters. Breidis is No 1 with the WBC, and Vlasov No 2, the WBO have Glowacki No 2 and Vlasov No 5 the WBA have Vlasov No 2 and Glowacki No 3. The No 1 spot with the IBF is vacant with Andrew Tabiti who is already through to the semi-finals at No 3 and Glowacki No 7. Gevor’s only rating is No 14 with the WBC but then he is promoted by Sauerland promotions which explains his inclusion. Of course Yuniel Dorticos is also through to the semi-finals.

The elephant in the room is that on the same night in Manchester Oleg Usyk defends all four titles against Tony Bellew. Whoever wins that fight it is likely that all four titles will become vacant during the life of this WBSS tournament but until after the Usyk vs. Bellew and thee 10 November quarter-finals are over it won’t be clear who will be fighting for three of the four titles. It is impossible to know what is happening with the WBA. In their September ratings they showed Usyk as super champion, Beibut Shumenov as their secondary champion, and Arsen Goulamirian as their interim champion and Denis Lebedev as “champion in recess”. Their October ratings do not show Goulamirian at all and show Dorticos at No 1. I am not sure why Goulamirian has disappeared totally and I am also not sure how Lebedev can be “in recess” as he had a fight in September. It seems likely he will be reinstated and his fight with Mike Wilson on 24 November on a show in Monaco will be a title defence-of some title. Leave it to the WBA to screw things up at least in that they are reliable.

Apart from their headaches in the cruisers the WBA are still struggling to sort out the position on their secondary heavyweight title. Manuel Charr was to have defended the title against Fres Oquendo on 29 September but of course Charr tested positive for a banned substance. That ruled out Charr and as Oquendo rightly turned down a $500,000 offer to fight Jarrell Miller the WBA are still on the hook from the court case where they were ordered to give Oquendo a title fight. Oquendo has not fought for four years and the way it is going I can see him fighting for the title against Anthony Joshua’s grandson. That would be more like Super 88 than Super 8. No WBA title fight for Miller Instead he will fight Romanian Bogdan Dinu in Mulvane, Kansas on 17 November.

It is only natural that Daniel Jacobs should be calling out Saul Alvarez but the IBF may put a spoke in that wheel. Before the Serhiy Derevyanchenko fight Jacobs was rated behind Jack Culcay at No 3 so they may insist he fight Culcay before anyone else.

The Jeff Horn vs. Anthony Mundine fight in Brisbane on 30 November will be a huge fight for Australia. I am amazed by Mundine. At 43 he is still a force but what amazes me is that he started out as a super middle, moved up to middle, went down to super welter, fought Danny Green at cruiser and is now going to fight welterweight Jeff Horn at catchweight. He is a very controversial figure in Australia due to his strong stance on racial matters and he has said that he will not stand during the national anthem in Brisbane.

Juan Francisco will have a keep busy fight as he waits for a return shot at Srisaket. Estrada will face former WBC flyweight champion Sonny Boy Jaro. The Filipino scored a major upset when he beat Pongsaklek for the WBC title in 2012 but then lost three fights in a row including dropping the WBC title. He has won 10 of his 11 fights since then but at 36 and past his best he should pose no threat to Estrada.The planned fight for the secondary WBA super welter title between the champion Brian Castano and former champion Erislandy Lara has been postponed until sometime early next year.

Two of Poland’s leading heavyweights, Artur Szpilka and Mariusz Wach will battle it out in Gliwice on 10 November. I don’t like the term “Crossroads” but the loser will find it hard to stay relevant if he loses here. At 29 it is not quite so critical for Szpilka but at 38 time is running out for Wach.

There will an IBF eliminator in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 5 January to find a challenger for Errol Spence. The IBF No 1 spot vacant, No 2 Yordenis Ugas is lined up to challenge Shawn Porter for the WBC title in February and No 3 Jesse Vargas declined to fight an eliminator. The outcome is that Kuala Lumpur-based Uzbek Kudratillo Abdukakhorov the No 4 and Japan’s Keita Obara No 6 will fight each other to fill the No 1 spot. It seems that the Porter vs. Ugas fight will be on the same show as Spence vs. Mikey Garcia.

With Zolani Tete tied up in the WBSS bantam tournament the WBO are already looking to crown an interim champion. Ghanaian Duke Micah is rated No 1 by the WBO with Mexican Ricardo Espinoza No 2. Micah is a certainty but as yet it is not clear if Espinoza will accept the opportunity. If Isaac Dogboe retains his WBO super bantam title against Emanuel Navarrete in New York on 8 December, then with Micha’s title fight and Richard Commey now to meet Russian Isa Chaniev for the IBF light title relinquished by Mikey Garcia Ghana could have three world champion in the first half of 2019.

Plenty of good fights to come for the EBU tiles. From the lighter to the heavier a date is awaited for Andrew Selby’s challenge to Vicente Legrand for the flyweight title. Jeremy Parodi and Luca Rigoldi contest the vacant super bantam title on 17 November, on 14 November Samir Ziani and Juli Giner fight for the vacant super feather title, Francesco Patera, fresh from his upset victory over Lewis Ritson, will defend the lightweight title against Marvin Petit with purse bids due 19 November The super light title is vacant and Joe Hughes and Andrea Scarpa will fight for that on 30 November in Italy, Kerman Lejarraga defends the welterweight title against Frankie Gavin in Bilbao on 17 November, at super welter Sergio Garcia will be allowed a voluntary defence and then has to fight Zakaria Attou, negotiations are ongoing for Kamil Szeremeta to defend his title against Martin Murray, Robin Krasniqi has a voluntary defence of his light heavyweight title against Stefan Haertel on 17 November and if he wins he then has to defend against Juergen Brahmer. Cruiserweight champion Yves Ngabu is defending against Micki Nielsen no date yet for that one and finally if no agreement is reached purse bids are due 13 November for Agit Kabayel’s defence of the heavyweight title against Otto Wallin. Quite a schedule and some high quality fights.

Marcos Maidana is still scoring victories but in the courts not in the ring. The former WBA super light and welter champion sued his former manager claiming that he had defrauded Maidana of over $600,000. The court ruled that his manager had adulterated contracts, forged Maidana’s signature and collected money in the name of Maidana including a $175,000 signing on fee that Maidana should have received as signing on bonus from Universum Media. Whether Maidana will be able to recover the money is a different matter.

On the South African scene it was good to learn that Gideon Buthelezi was finally paid in full for his IBO title defence against Lucas Fernandez. However there is a lesson there that when you bend the rules even with the best of intentions it can rebound on you. This time not insisting on the promoter having the money instead of a promise from a sponsor for the money has ended happily but that has not always been the case in the past.

There was some controversy over Tommy Oosthuizen’s win over Thabiso Mchunu in September so they will fight each other again on a Rodney Berman show on 6 December. On the same show unbeaten Thulani Mbenge will be defending his IBO welterweight title against experienced former IBF lightweight champion Miguel Vazquez.

The Italian Boxing Hall of Fame was formally opened late last month. Nino Benvenuti, Patricio Oliva, Mauricio Stecca and the late Giovanni Parisi were the first inductees. They are unique in that they are the only Italian boxers to win both an Olympic gold medal and a world title. Parisi tragically died in an automobile accident in 2009 at the age of just 41. There have been so many great Italian boxers and boxers of Italian heritage it will interesting to see who else joins this famous four in the Hall.

Not such good news for Italians was the death last month of Piero Del Papa at the age of 80. Del Papa was Italian light heavyweight champion and twice held the European title. In his twelve year 62 fight career he fought Eddie Cotton, Mauro Mina, Carl Bobo Olsen, Giulio Rinaldi, Chic Calderwood, Tom Bogs, Gregorio Peralta, Rudi Lubbers and so many more. His only shot at a world title came in his 55th fight when he was knocked out in one round by Vicente Rondon for the WBA light heavy title. RIP Piero.

Last month also saw the death of one of Kenya’s outstanding boxers in Richard Murunga. He put Kenya on the map when he came out of nowhere to win a bronze medal at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich where Kenya also won a silver and another bronze. He turned pro in 1974 and had a few fights in Europe for Mogen Palle. After he retired despite a spinal injury making him a paraplegic he played a big part in boxing in Kenyan as a trainer and later as a manager and founded the Kenyan Boxing Federation. RIP Richard.

Former world light heavy and cruiser champion Dariusz Michalczewski is entering the ranks of promoters. His first show will be a co-promotion with Erol Celan in Gdansk on 8 December. Michalczewski was 48-2 in his pro career winning his first 48 fights including 25 consecutive victories in WBO WBA and IBF title fights over two divisions. ​Always expect the unexpected in boxing. After suffering his seventh loss in his last eight fights Georgian boxer Levan Shonia went back to his corner leaned over the ropes and punched his trainer. That was more than he had managed in six rounds against Spas Genov.

With boxing it can be difficult at times to decide whether to cheer, laugh or cry and that’s how it appears right now. We have just enjoyed a master class from Terrence Crawford when beating Jose Benavidez. The show reportedly drew the highest US viewing figures this year for any boxing show either broadcast or cable this. We have Tony Bellew lining up to fight Olek Usyk on November 10 with all four cruiserweight belts on the lined. Saul Alvarez is moving up to fight Rocky Fielding for the secondary WBA super middleweight title on 16 December, we have a very competitive WBSS super light tournament on the go and a bantamweight tournament that holds out the possibility of some very tasty fights, Vasyl Lomachenko will try to unify the WBA and WBO lightweight titles when he faces Jose Pedraza on 8 December and Mikey Garcia looks set to defend his IBF lightweight title against Richard Commey. If Garcia wins then a Lomachenko vs. Garcia fight will be an immediate topic of conversation. On 22 December Josh Warrington will put his IBF featherweight title on the line against Carl Frampton and of course there will be a huge WBC heavyweight title fight between Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury on 1 December with combined records of 67-0 and two very different styles and very different people. Plenty there for our pleasure.

The laugh or cry comes in with Floyd Mayweather Jr having trouble not being the big super star so announcing he is going to fight some UFC guy named Khabib Nurmagomedov on 31 December. After that somehow he will fit in another fight with Conor McGregor-once was more than enough-and then Manny Pacquiao-once was more than enough-with Mayweather claiming that he estimates his purse for Nurmagomedov could be $110 to $200 million. Hell I didn’t realise there were that many idiots in the world. This isn’t about boxing it’s about an ego that can’t stand not being the main man in the headlines. I am tempted to shout for Nurmagomedov.

Manny Pacquiao did not help my mood by saying he expected to fight Mayweather on 5 MayLooking at some of the above obviously the call now is for a Crawford vs. Errol Spence fight which would be a great event. The snag as it often is is the respective contracts Crawford and Spence are under. It would mean Top Rank and ESPN for Crawford doing business with Showtime for Spence but for a fight this big there will be plenty of incentive for the parties to find a way to make it happen.

For those interested in money-as I am-Crawford’s purse for the Benavidez fight was $3.625 million and Benavidez took $500,000. Crawford vs. Spence would be much bigger then that but let’s hope the Crawford keeps his hands to himself at any face-to-face stuff.

For Alvarez vs. Fielding the obvious size difference is a factor with Fielding having been over the light heavyweight limit in some of his early fights and Alvarez having weighed as low as 140lbs in his early days. Alvarez has never weighed more than 164lbs. The fight contract has a stipulation that at the second weigh-in to be held on the day of the fight neither fighter must be more than 10lbs over what he was in the original weigh in. It is also amazing how quickly the water flows under the bridge in boxing. A year ago Alvarez was going to throw the WBC belt in to the bin if he beat Golovkin this week he was feted by the WBC as a great champion and pictured proudly wearing the green belt.

Obviously the huge agreement signed by Alvarez and DAZN guaranteeing Alvarez $365 million for 5-year, 11 fights deal has cause quite a stir. It seems a bit ambitious to me. No one knows what will happen next week in boxing let alone five years. At the beginning of 2017 Roman Gonzalez was recognised by some as the No 1 pound-for-pound fighter yet by September after his second loss to Srisaket he was being written off. A win for Rocky Fielding would make that deal look pretty silly.

Of course Manny Pacquiao is still on the scene and he has confirmed he will fight Adrien Broner on 12 January. Manny has stayed around too long. His legacy is huge enough for us to forgive him for this but he needs to walk away soon.

The last of the HBO boxing shows will be held on 8 December. No venue yet but it will feature Roman Gonzalez and Norwegian “First Lady” Cecilia Braekhus. The 37-year-old Colombian-born Braekhus will be defending her IBF, WBA, WBC, WBO and IBO welterweight titles. An amazing fighter. There is plenty of talk of Gonzalez challenging WBA super fly champion Khalid Yafai down the line. In the meantime Yafai is set to defend his title on the big Monaco show against No 13 Mexican Israel Gonzalez who lost to Jerwin Ancajas for the IBF title in February.

Jaime Munguia is determined to be a busy champion. He will fight on either 7 or 15 December and if it is the 15th then it will be a main support to Alvarez vs. Fielding. The name being bandied about as his opponent is 13-0-1 Takeshi Inoue. Don’t worry Jamie I don’t think he is any relation to Naoya Inoue.

The WBA’s stupidity is showing again. On November 24 on a big show in Monaco Denis Lebedev will defend his ???? WBA title against American Mike Wilson. Putting aside the fact that Wilson has never fought any opponent remotely near to world rated (he is No 57 in the BoxRec ratings) the ???? is there because according to Matchroom Boxing Lebedev is defending his WBA cruiserweight title. The WBA super champion is Oleg Usyk, the secondary champion is Beibut Shumenov and the interim champion is Arsen Goulamirian and poor Denis is “champion in recess” so no matter who wins the WBA do not have a title for him. Lebedev has come out of “recess” so will want to know where his title is and they can hardly put Wilson in recess if he wins. ​The WBO had their well-oiled ratings elevator working. Last weekend Angel Acosta defended his WBO light flyweight title with a second round kayo of Mexican Abraham Rodriguez. The challenger had a very impressive looking 23-1 record. So it’s okay as long as you ignore that in his last two fights he lost in March on a fifth round retirement against a guy with a 6-2 record so naturally he was not in the ratings. In July he won a six round fight against a fighter with a 4-9 record and that was good enough to get him a No 11 rating and a second round crushing kayo from Acosta.

Oscar Valdez will return to action on 12 January. No opponent named yet but it will be a defence of his WBO featherweight title with the plan then being to go for a unification match with the winner of Warrington and Frampton.

British heavyweight action will see Hughie Fury attempt to make himself the mandatory challenger for Anthony Joshua’s IBF title by beating Bulgarian Kubrat Pulev in Sofia on 27 October. A very winnable fight for Fury. In December it looks likely that Dillian White will face Dereck Chisora in what White must be hoping is the last fight he has to take before getting a return against Joshua

The Philippines has only one world champion right now in WBO minimumweight title holder Vic Saludar (Pacquiao holds the secondary WBA welterweight title so not a world title in my reckoning) but that could change on 29 October when Randy Petalcorin (29-2-1) takes on Nicaraguan Felix Alvarado (33-2) for the vacant IBF light fly title. It will be Alvarado’s third shot at a title having lost to Kazuto Ioka for the secondary WBA light flyweight title in 2013 and to Juan Carlos Reveco for the secondary WBA flyweight title in 2014.

Joseph Parker will return to the ring on 15 December in Christchurch. His opponent will be Alex Flores. Flores has a 17-1-1 record with 15 wins by KO/TKO but again don’t look too closely. In 2014 he lost inside the distance to Charles Martin and boxed a six round draw with an opponent who was 4-4-2. He had one fight in 2015, did not fight in 2016 and had one fight in 2017 and one fight in June this year all against low level opposition. Should not be a hard task for Parker.

A little while back there was a problem in South Africa with visiting-and home- fighters not getting paid. It was a disgrace mainly because the rule on purses being lodged before the fights was not enforced. I thought things had improved but the influential South African web site “Sowetan Live” carried a story that seems to indicate there is still a problem. The paper alleges that the promoter did not have the money to put up before Gideon Buthelezi defended his IBO title against Lucas Emanuel Fernandez East London on 27 July. With the promoter unable to pay Buthelezi the amount he was due the fight was going to be cancelled. However an official in the Boxing South Africa Board (BSA)convinced Buthelezi to agree to sign a contract for a sum of about approx $1,400 and BSA reportedly paid him that amount with the promise that the balance would be paid later by the promoter. Nearly three months later Buthelezi is still waiting for his money. The promoter did not have the money at fight time but had partnered with the local municipality for the $30,000 needed and has assured Buthelezi he will get paid. The municipality said that it had approved the request from the promoter and that it was with their legal services and if there were no legal challenges the sum would be paid to the promoter and Buthelezi can only hope the promoter will then pays him. If the Sowetan’s allegations are true then as both the BSA and the IBO experienced this before they don’t seem to have learnt anything from it. The IBO can say that it is a domestic problem but the name of the IBO was on the title fight and it does not reflect well on them that the same thing has happened again. It would seem the BSA took this action to ensure the fight went on and in view of their promise to Buthelezi and as he is licensed by them they have an obligation to make sure Buthelezi gets paid and that this does not happen again.

Danish Hall of Fame promoter Mogens Palle has a show coming up on 24 November. He is bringing in former interim WBA Middleweight champion Dmitri Chudinov as a very tough test for his Danish light heavyweight prospect Jeppe Morell. Next year Palle will celebrate 60 years of promoting fights. Some achievement.

Former WBC light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal will get one more shot at the big time. After a number of outside the ring problems it seemed that he was going to retire but he has landed a shot at WBA champion Dmitry Bivol in Atlantic City on 24 November. Unbeaten Russian heavyweight Evgeny Tischenko is schedule to fight on the undercard.​Something that could bring tears to your eyes is the disappearance of two building in Detroit. The Kronk gym was demolished and the Joe Louis Area is closed and going the same way, It appears that the closure and sale of the land where the arena stands has had to be undertaken as part of the restructuring deal to get the City out of bankruptcy. It is ironic that they have been selling off the seats from the arena for a few months and have raised over a $1 million, It took Joe Louis 17 years to earn $4 million.

The more that the Erkan Teper reported positive test is investigated the worse the situation seems. It is alleged that this is not the first time Teper has tested positive. He tested positive after his EBU title winning contests against Newfel Ouatah in June 2014. In that case he waived the opening of his B sample, a tacit admission of guilt. The Bund Deutscher Berufsboxer (BDB), the German body affiliated to the EBU, initially banned Teper for nine months and then reduced his ban to six months but did not make the failed tests public and it is not clear whether they advised the EBU of this positive test. That ban ran from the date of the offence and its reduction coincidentally made it possible for Teper to win the vacant IBF Inter-Continental title by beating Johann Duhaupas in March last year. Also ignored was an April 2015 raid on Teper where allegedly substances such as Clenbuterol, testosterone and growth hormones were found. That is an on-going investigation being carried out by the Munich public prosecutor involving the premises where the drugs were uncovered. I find the attitude of the EBU to the reported positive test after the David Price fight puzzling. Even though their affiliate the BDB, Teper’s home Board, have declared the fight a No Contest the EBU has so far refused to change the result of the fight. The title was declared vacant reportedly due to Teper being injured and unable to go through with his defence against Robert Helenius personally I find the timing of that suspicious in view of the reported positive test being revealed such a short while after Teper pulled out of the fight, but that could be a coincidence and I could just have a suspicious nature. In the event that the allegations are proven beyond doubt that Teper did take a banned substance then justice dictates the both the Ouatah and the Price results should be changed to No Contest. In fact Ouatah has a stronger case than Price as Teper made a tacit confession and was given a ban by the BDB so there are no grounds for not changing that result unless there is a statute of limitations for cheats with Lance Armstrong and other cheats being stripped of their titles it does not seem so. The WBA have been shuffling again. With Andre Ward having relinquished their Super super middle title they have promoted the holder of their secondary title Fedor Chudinov to Super Champion. As far as I can see he does not meet any of the criteria for that promotion but hey presto! It leaves the secondary title vacant and on 19 January interim champion Vincent Feigenbutz fights Giovanni De Carolis for the now vacant secondary title and that will leave the interim title vacant with another sanctioning fee raked in eventually. Just so cynical the way it is manipulated. Chudinov’s fight with Felix Sturm on 20 February will now be for the WBA Super super middle title. Not a bad reward to Sturm for not having won a fight since December 2013.Strange about Ward. He relinquished the WBA super middle title on 12 November but in the WBA ratings published 10 December he had disappeared completely-fallen down a hole? However he has a date with Sullivan Barrera the current WBA No 6. Ward at light heavy would open another avenue so that some of the focus could come off the Sergey Kovalev-Adonis Stevenson will they/won’t they game as a Ward fight against either would be a big fight. With Ward working closely with the WBA Kovalev would seem to have the inside track.So sad to hear of the death of Howard Davis Jr. Such a hugely talented boxer outstanding as an amateur with his gold medal at the 1976 Olympics where he took the Best Boxer award ahead of such other talented team mates such as Sugar Ray Leonard. He won 25 of his first 26 pro fights but the loss was the all important decision against Jim Watts for the WBC lightweight title. He came real close in 1984 losing on split decision against Edwin Rosario in Puerto Rico in a second shot at the WBC title. He kept fighting drawing with Meldrick Taylor in a fight between two classy stylist but lost to Joe Manley and Hector Camacho in non-title fights before having his final chance at a title being knocked out by James McGirt in 1988 for the IBF super light title. He lost his last fight to unbeaten Dana Rosenblatt who was the only non-world/future world or past world champion to beat him. I always felt that the loss to Jim Watt was a turning point for him. It was a fight he could have won and was expected to win but the impact of losing affected him beyond that fight. He went on to train and promote in mixed martial arts and died tragically early at 59. RIP Howard.The bouts in Japan at the end of the year featured fighters who had benefited from the ratings magic carpet. That’s the one that sends a fighter flying high with no visible means of support (or justification). The WBA excelled themselves as usual. Luis de la Rosa who fought Ryoichi Taguchi for the vacant WBA light flyweight title was unrated by the WBA in their ratings issued on 8 October but by the 10 November he had suddenly appeared at No 7 not having fought since March! In the case of the WBO I thought that their stupid approach of giving a rating to someone who wins one of their regional titles was the reason for Filipino Vic Saludar’s suddenly appearance at No 8 in their July ratings. But the dates did not match as he did not beat Rizky Pratama (record 6-3) to win the vacant WBO Asia Pacific title until September and his July rating did not have the designation “ Asia Pacific” at that time. He had fought in February but rating a guy who has not fought for 5 months would be a stretch even for the WBO so it could only be his win in July over Michael Kaibigan. The Kaibigan fight was over eight rounds and Mr Kaibigan’s record was 3-2-2. I deny anyone to come up with an honest reason for Saludar’s No 8 rating in July. Incidentally the win over Pratama (6-3) saw Saludar climb to No 4.On paper Venezuelan Jose Uzcategui looks a reasonable opponent for James De Gale based on his destruction of previously unbeaten Julius Jackson in two rounds. However that result was not part of the IBF plan. In order to become the mandatory challenger Jackson, rated No 5 but with slots 1 and 2 vacant, had to beat a rated fighter but he had not done so and could not climb to No 1. Ah the plot begins with Uzcategui suddenly getting the magic carpet treatment appearing from nowhere in the IBF ratings to No 7 in their ratings published on 5 August even though he had not fought since February. Perfect Jackson beats Uzcategui qualifies for No 1 all sorted, but no one explained to Uzcategui. Nowhere to No 7 when he has not fought for almost 5 months. Brings back memories of Robert W, Lee Snr. Why is the FBI never around when you need them?Thai Amnat Ruenroeng is an example of how boxing can change a man’s life. Ruenroeng took up boxing whilst serving his third term in jail. He was allowed to fight in amateur tournaments whilst still in jail and was released one day after winning the national title. From there he never really looked back winning many titles as an amateur then turning pro and winning the IBF flyweight title. He defended the title three times last year with wins over Zou Shiming, Johnriel Casimero and Myung Ho Lee and the Sports Authority of Thailand elected him as Athlete of the Year. Without boxing he would probably still be in jail or dead in an alley somewhere. Give the sport its due and Ruenroeng the credit for literally fighting his way out poverty and crime.Ike Ibeabuchi is another former prisoner looking for salvation through boxing. The Nigerian-born heavyweight fought in the USA as an amateur before turning professional and scoring 20 wins, 15 by KO/TKO. After a spate of unsavoury incidents he spent time in a state facility being treated for a bipolar disorder until he was considered fit to stand trial. He entered what is known in the USA as an Alford plea whereby the defendant does not admit the charges but accepts that the evidence presented by the prosecutor had would be likely to persuade a judge and jury to find the defendant guilty beyond reasonable doubt. The sentences he received ran concurrently but whilst in prison he studied and obtained two degrees . On release had to spend some time detained by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement department. Now free he wants to continue his career. He is 42 ,will be 43 next month, and has not fought for almost 17 years. Manny Pacquiao’s team are looking to help him get a fight on the Bradley show but there are a whole serious of test he will have to take before he gets a licencePlenty happening with Nonito Donaire. Evgeny Gradovich pulled out of his 23 April fight for Donaire’s WBO super bantam title preferring to take a fight in Spain to be sure he could make 122lbs comfortably enough. He is replaced by Hungarian Zsolt Bedak who has a 25-1 record. Don’t get too excited “Mr Left Hook” was stopped in ten rounds by Wilfredo Vasquez Jr for this same title in 2010. He was out almost three years and since then has fed on a diet of second rate opposition but importantly won the WBO European title that saw him shoot up the ratings. I guess it keeps the sanctioning fees rolling in. Jesse Magdaleno is another one with his eyes on Donaire and he is going to fight Filipino Edward Mansito on 13 february. Magdaleno has made 122lbs in the past but was 127lbs in his last fight so he too will be making sure he is comfortable at the weight before his inevitable challenge to Donaire.Plenty of purse offer outstanding and negotiations on-going effecting British boxers. The EBU indicates that negotiations are ongoing for Ryan Farrag’s defence of his EBU bantam title against Karim Guerfi, purse offers are due 18 January for James Dickens defence of his EBU super bantam title against Kiko Martinez, 18 January is also the deadline for purse offers for the return fight between champion Ruben Nieto and Lenny Daws for the EBU super light title, purse offers are due Friday (8 January) for Hadillah Mohoumadi defence of his EBU super middle defence against Callum Smith and by 21 January for Robert Helenius vs. Derek Chisora. The only current interest in the EU titles is Enzo Maccarinelli nominated as official challenger for the light heavy title but with no co-challenger nominated. Of course all of or any of the above could be cancelled if negotiations are agreed before the purse submission dates. In addition Brit Kevin Satchell challenges Frenchman Thomas Masson for the flyweight title in Arras on 5 March. My old dad ran around there in a tank in 1940 giving the Panzers a nasty shock at Arras before getting his feet wet at Dunkirk.At a higher level than the EBU the management of Kell Brook and Kevin Bizier have until 12 January to conclude negotiations for Brook’s title defence or it will go to purse offers.It will be an interesting time for the Smith clan from Liverpool with Stephen challenging Jose Pedraza for the IBF super feather title on 26 March in New York. With brother Liam holding the WBO super welter title I am struggling to remember if any two British boxing brothers have held world titles at the same time?Top rank and few hundred million Chinese will be hoping that Zou Shiming can win a world title in 2016. He kicks off his campaign with a fight against Brazilian Natan Santana Coutinho on 30 January in Shanghai. Last year was a banner year for Filipino outfit ALA Promotions as they spread their wings with shows in the USA and Dubai. They kick this season off with a show in their home base of Cebu City on February 27 with hot prospect Albert Pagara facing former IBF super fly champion Juan Carlos Sanchez . They also have a joint promotion with Top Rank in Manila featuring the previously mentioned Donaire vs. Bedak fight and also in planning is a defence of his WBO light fly title for Donnie Nietes in May. I am old enough to remember way back when Filipino fighters were really just used as fodder for the records of other Orient fighters. There are still plenty of journeymen/travelling losers but also some of the greatest fighters in the world today and there is enough money available to pay fighters to come to the Philippines to help build their fighters instead of the other way around.

Snips and Snipes 5 January 2016I don’t like looking back so I will look forward to the fights I would like to see in 2016 of course only with the help and permission of TV, Promoters and sanctioning bodies! At heavyweight Tyson Fury vs. Wlad Klitschko II-I didn’t believe the first time so I want to see it again. Deontay Wilder vs. Alex Povetkin, at light heavy Sergey Kovalev-Adonis Stevenson and Andre Ward any combination out of those three. At super middle it looks like Arthur Abraham vs. Gilberto Ramirez is set and I would like to see James De Gale get a unification fight with anyone and Callum Smith vs. Badou Jack. At middle Gennady Golovkin-Saul Alvarez-Daniel Jacobs and Billy Joe Saunders obviously Golovkin vs. Alvarez first pick and Jacobs vs., Saunders might be a good fight. There is nothing at super welter that sets me on fire and too much at welterweight with Pacquiao vs. Bradley signed next would be Kell Brook vs. Amir Khan a huge fight for Britain, and Keith Thurman against any of them. At super light Terrence Crawford vs. Adrian Broner or Crawford vs. either Lucas Matthysse or Ruslan Provodnikov. Postol may be a better fighter than those two but not as exciting. Lightweight Jorge Linares against either Terry Flanagan or Anthony Crolla and perhaps Denis Shafikov vs. Richard Commey. Super feather Takashi Uchiyama vs. Nicholas Walters, Francisco Vargas vs. Jose Pedraza. Feather Vasyl Lomachenko vs. Leo Santa Cruz and Lee Selby vs. Gary Russell. We already have Carl Frampton vs. Scott Quigg for February with the winner against Nonito Donaire would be good. At bantam Jamie McDonnell vs. Lee Haskins would be a good British fight and Shinsuke Yamanaka might have an interesting time against Marlon Tapales. Super fly any contests between Naoya Inoue-Zolani Tete and Carlos Cuadras would be great and even better if Roman Gonzalez decided to move up. At flyweight Gonzalez against Juan Francisco Estrada to see if Estrada could do better the second time. Light fly I’d like to see Donnie Nietes get some recognition with Akira Yaegashi my preferred opponent and at minimumweight Hekkie Budler and Wanheng. Not too much to ask for. I will keep this list and see how many of my dreams come true,

“Apres moi le deluge”. After me the flood- is supposed to have been said by Madame de Pompadour but it just as easily could be said by Wlad Klitschko ( it takes a stretch to go from Madame de Pompadour to Dr Steelhammer but any idiot with two typing fingers and a keyboard can do a time/gender warp that even Dr Who could envy) . We are already on our way to having four heavyweight champions again. The last time we were in that position was in 2011 before Klitschko beat David Haye to add the WBA title to the IBF and WBO titles he already held. From then until his loss to Tyson Fury he kept the titles ticking over with all three sanctioning bodies providing a supervisor for each fight and, with the exception of his fight with Kubrat Pulev which was only for the IBF title, all three bodies recognising the fights as being unified title fights. Tyson now only holds the WBA and WBO titles, Deontay Wilder is WBC champion and on 16 January Charles Martin and Vyacheslav Glazkov fight for the vacant IBF title so we are up to three now. With Charles Martin at No 1 in the latest published WBO ratings and Anthony Joseph at No 2 the ridiculous rating of Anthony Joshua at No 2 should mean that without fighting a rated fighter Joshua will become the mandatory challenger to Fury for his WBO title this month. Joshua is also the No 2 rated fighter with the WBC so if Deontay Wilder ever agrees to stop dodging Alex Povetkin then after that fight Joshua will also be the WBC mandatory challenger. The problem for Fury is that the return with Klitschko will not be a mandatory fight. He will have Joshua his WBO mandatory challenger. However Joshua is currently down No 13 with the WBA and with interim champion Luis Ortiz and the winner of the fight between WBA secondary title holder Ruslan Chagaev and No 2 Lucas Browne queuing up to face Fury there is a danger he will be stripped of his WBO title if he does not fight Joshua or be stripped of his WBA title if he does! I think Madame de Pompadour had it right the deluge will soon be upon us.

I can’t see Manny Pacquiao vs. Tim Bradley selling well. Yes they are 1-1 in their series and yes it is a good enough fight on paper but neither of their earlier fights set the place on fire. I feel that if this is Pacquiao’s last fight he should have looked for a new challenge rather than going over old ground. It is being said he would delay his retirement if there was the chance of another Mayweather fight but there is not much chance of that and it would not be any better as a fight than it was in May and certainly would not sell as well. However, Pacquiao is still adamant that the Bradley fight will be his last. He is going to have to wear two hats in his preparation for the fight with Bradley as he is also running for the Senate and is by no means a certainty so he will have to find time to do some electioneering whilst keeping his focus for the Bradley fight.There are on-going negotiations for the Arthur Abraham vs. Gilberto Ramirez fight to go on as part of the undercard to the Pacquiao vs. Bradley fight but at the moment that fight is going to purse bids which are due to be opened on Friday in Puerto Rico. You can be sure that if Sauerland wins the bidding it will go on in Germany, probably in March, so Top Rank have only a couple of days to do a deal or else they will need to find deep pockets to win the purse bids and get it on the Pacquiao vs. Bradley show.

Am I the only to think that talking about Gennady Golovkin vs. Saul Alvarez for 26 September is getting way ahead of things. A week is a long time in boxing let alone nine months and a lot can happen before then. I guess that will be another catchweight fight but if it does come off I am going for Golovkin. If Alvarez wins then hopefully you will all forget that nine months ago I said Golovkin would win.​

As always a huge thanks to Eric Armit for his most recent "Snips and Snipes"

Snips and Snipes 26 November 2015For those interested in money the purses from the Las Vegas show were Miguel Cotto $15 million, Saul Alvarez $5 million, Takashi Miura $400,000, Francisco Vargas $200,000, Guillermo Rigondeaux $350,000 and Drian Francisco $125,000. The earnings of both Cotto and Alvarez will have been boosted by associated income but in some ways the luckiest guy was Francisco instead of appearing on a low earnings show in the Philippines he instead received the biggest purse of his career as a late substitute against Rigondeaux.

With regard to the WBC stripping Cotto of their title just four days before the fight I can see both points of view. When he agreed to the fight Cotto knew what the sanctioning fee was and he had made money out of being the WBC title fight against Sergio Martinez and Daniel Geale so he had at least a moral obligation to pay it. It is the same with the stand-aside money of $800,000 to Gennady Golovkin so that the Alvarez fight could go ahead for the WBC title. Again a moral obligation to pay. From his point of view he could either fulfil those obligations and pay out $1.1 million or save himself a whole lot of cash by throwing away the WBC title and $1.1 million is a big incentive to walk away from your obligations. The question now is who is he going to fight for big money. If Alvarez is going to fight Golovkin whoever wins the WBC will somehow make sure they can’t defend their title against Cotto. There is talk of a return match with Alvarez but he would have to take to thin end of the purse and you can be sure that would not be for the WBC title. There is talk of Tim Bradley, or Terrence Crawford or Keith Thurman but no one is going to pay him $15 million for any of those fights. He should have just paid up the $1.1 million and walked away with “just” $13.9 million-I would have. Cotto has said he will fight again in mid-2016 and who knows what the fight scene will be like then

Alvarez has said he will fight Golovkin but only at 154lbs which makes nonsense of the weight categories. He is WBC middleweight champion and unless he has forgotten the poundage for the division is 160lbs. Big sanctioning fee involved so if necessary the rules can be ignored and Golovkin will have to be inside the limit for the super welter division in order to fight for the middleweight title. Unless of course Alvarez decides to go back down to super welter.

The picture only gets more complicated and not less. The WBC have said that they would have no objection to a Cinco De Mayo show featuring both Alvarez and Golovkin against separate opponents with the pair then meeting in September. That ignores the fact that Golovkin is only the WBC interim champion and as he also holds the WBA and IBF titles those two bodies may want him to make defences which might not fit in with those plans. I’m getting a headache!!!

The talk of the step-aside money for Golovkin reminds me of a story surrounding Don King Tim Witherspoon, Tony Tubbs, Frank Bruno and Mickey Duff. The story alleges that the Witherspoon vs. Tubbs WBA title fight was so bad that even the referee and the judges fell asleep. The fight ended in a majority decision for the challenger Witherspoon. The WBA had ordered a return but Mickey Duff was angling for Witherspoon to come to Britain to fight Bruno. That would be a much more lucrative fight for everyone except Tubbs. Allegedly King approached Tubbs and told him that there was no money to be made from the return fight with Witherspoon but if he agreed to stand aside so that Witherspoon could fight Bruno he could get him $X, I can’t remember the exact figure, to stand aside and of course he would get to fight the winner so had nothing to lose. King then went to Duff and told him that Tubbs wanted stand aside money of let’s say $X plus $50,000. Duff agreed to pay that. King then went to Witherspoon and said that even as champion he would make peanuts fighting a return with Tubbs that no one wanted. He could get Tubbs to stand aside but Witherspoon would have to pay Tubbs X plus $50,000 and he would then recoup that with the much bigger purse for fighting Bruno. Witherspoon agreed. So King paid Tubbs the original $X and pocketed the rest. Sadly Witherspoon beat Bruno but lost the title a few months later being knocked out in a round by James “Bonecrusher” Smith-and Tubbs never did get his return with Witherspoon.

I can’t believe that Randy Caballero was stupid enough to be 5 ½ lbs overweight for his fight with Lee Haskins. It may only have become public when he stepped on the scales but it must have been evident well before that. “Oh dear look I am 5 ½ lbs overweight” no way. It is totally unprofessional and his whole team are to blame not just the fighter. It seems to happen almost every other week and it is dishonest as his fans will have paid for their tickets. Perhaps that’s one remedy if a fighter fails to make the weight he should forced to offer refunds to the crowd.

It looks as though the return fight between Fedor Chudinov and Felix Sturm for the secondary WBA middleweight title could be on again. The two had broken off negotiations in October but are talking again. Chudinov won the vacant title with a split decision over Sturm in Germany in May.

Talk of retirement from Brandon Rios has had a short shelf life. The former undefeated WBA lightweight champion is already back in the gym less than three weeks after his loss to Tim Bradley.

What a very mixed week for boxing. We had the Alvarez vs. Cotto fight, not a classic but a very good fight, we had the drama of Vargas and Miura and the emotional victory for Anthony Crolla and Arthur Abraham defying father Time. However there were three deaths in different circumstances. We lost former world champion Bob Foster to illness, former world champion O’Neil Bell was murdered and at the other end of the fame scale, but every bit as tragic, young Nicaraguan David Acevedo died after never recovering from a knockout he suffered in a fight on 14 November. I was privileged to be at ringside when Bob knocked out Chris Finnegan in the fourteenth round of their exciting fight for the WBA and WBC light heavyweight titles in London in 1972, a fight that was Ring Magazine “Fight of the Year”. He was one of the greatest light heavyweights of all time. Jamaican Bell was IBF, WBA and WBC cruiser champion at a time when the WBO was not really considered a major body so effectively he was “undisputed” champion. Acevedo was a four/six/eight round fighter with a modest record. He was fighting an opponent with a similar although local sources say that Acevedo shed 10lbs in the 24 hours before the fight to make the weight. Foster was 77, Bell 40 and Acevedo 23. Tragedies all. RIP Bob, O’Neil and David.

We nearly had another tragedy with Dawid “Gypsy” Kostecki being rushed to hospital and in intensive care after reportedly taking a concoction of alcohol and drugs in a suicide attempt. The 34-year-old Pole had reportedly been depressed. He had effectively retired with just one bout in November 2014 being his only fight in over three years.

WBO cruiser champion Krzys Glowacki has recovered from injury and it seems he will make the first defence of his title against Steve Cunningham in January or February next year. Currently Cunningham is not in the WBO top 15 but you can be sure that the elevator button will be pushed and will stop for Cunningham somewhere above the 16th floor of the WBO ratings.

No rest for Arthur Abraham after his victory over Martin Murray. The WBO have notified their respective teams that Abraham and No 1 Gilberto Ramirez have 30 days of free negotiation and if they fail to agree then the WBA will call for purse offers with a minimum set at $300,000. Top Rank are determined to get the fight in the USA but Abraham will not want to fight in the USA as his last two visits resulted in losses to Andre Dirrell and Andre Ward.

Similarly the IBF have given super fly champion McJoe Arroyo and his highest listed challenger Jerwin Ancajas until 18 December to come to an agreement for their fight and if they fail then the IBF will seek purse offers. “Pretty Boy” Ancajas is one Manny Pacquiao’s boxers.

Boxing is booming in Britain right now and it is difficult to tell which division is the most exciting. There is the fight in Manchester on 27 February where Carl Frampton and Scott Quigg clash in a huge fight for Britain. Now the lightweights are staking their claim with WBO champion Terry Flanagan clashing with interim WBA champion Derry Mathews on 13 February and talk of new WBA champion Anthony Crolla facing Kevin Mitchell. I have never known a period when there are so many exciting domestic matches with such world-wide impact-and it is only going to get better as guys such as Anthony Joshua, Luke Campbell etc. move up.

Guillermo Jones, the former WBA cruiser champion returned to action at the weekend. When he turned pro in 1993 he weighed 148lbs. On Friday he was 225 ¾ lbs! A 77lb weight gain. It is almost to the point where they could take a chunk out of him and make a minimum weight fighter and get two for the price of one. Only in boxing could someone such as Jones test positive twice once in 2013 and once in 2014 and be back in competition in 2015. What sort of message is that supposed to send to those thinking of cheating. The two factors that deters cheats in the certainty of being caught and the severity of the punishment. What a farce.

As far as banned substances are concerned it was disappointing to hear that Antonio Tarver had reportedly tested positive after his fight with Steve Cunningham in August which if confirmed will be the second time in his career. He had tested positive after his fight with Lateef Kayode in 2012 for what was described as synthetic testosterone. This time it was reported to be for (and don’t ask me what the difference is) exogenous Testosterone and anabolic steroid metabolites 5-a-Androstan eidola. Tarver denies taking any banned substances saying “Either the sample was contaminated or mixed up with another sample”.

The WBC has approved the fight between Danny Garcia and Robert Guerrero on January 23 as part of their elimination tournament to find a new welterweight champion. They have also agreed that the winner of a fight between Cesar Barrionuevo and Azael Cosio will also take part in the tournament. Garcia is their No 2 and Guerrero their No 6 which makes some kind of sense-but Barrionuevo and Cosio? Barrionuevo is No 19 in their ratings and Cosio No 29. How can people not in the top 15, with one of them only creeping into the top 30, be eligible to be in a tournament to find a new champion? Might just as well throw away all the good work done by the rating committee and just stick a load of names in a hat.

Former three-time world champion Jhonny Gonzalez tries to get his career back on track with a fight in Los Mochison 5 December. In September he lost a majority verdict to Jonathan Oquendo. This time he faces “Hurricane” Futa Nakagishi which should not be too tough as Futa is 2-2 in four six round fights this year and not in the JBC top 15

Some anger in South Africa over Hekkie Budler not figuring in the national sporting awards. As the WBA minimum champion he is the only South African holding a title of one of the four major sanctioning bodies (he is also IBO champion) and he has defended his title twice this year but was completely overlooked.

Sometimes talent runs in a family but it is not always the same talent. Right now a young High School running back is making people sit up and take notice. Several colleges have noticed his ability and if he continues to develop he could have a future in the NLF. A couple of Universities and others also have him on their radar. One of them is Louisville. That should be a clue. The teenager is Biaggio Ali Walsh the grandson of the great Muhammad Ali.

There has been some good news for boxing. In Los Angeles Abner Mares was honoured with a proclamation and the keys to the city of local spots Bell Gardens and Irwindale in southeast Los Angeles and was given the “Inspirational Award”. The three-division champion had been handing out turkeys for over 500 families.

Promoter Joe DeGuardia was voted “Promoter of the Year” by Ring 8. A law graduate and former New York Golden Gloves champion DeGuardia’s Star Boxing promotions have played a big part in the development of a number of fighters working with Chris Algieri, Demetrius Andrade and others and are highly respected for the quality of their shows and their honest approach to boxing. Congratulation Joe.

On the other side of the world the AIBA are helping boxing in Zambia. They have just finalised a new partnership with the National Olympic Committee of Zambia to promote their Headsup programme with the aim that the Olympic Youth Development Centre in Lusaka will become a centre of excellence for East Africa. The aim is to inspire youths in the region to take up boxing and whilst this is aimed at amateur boxing that’s where the next generation of professionals will come from.

​Similarly in Guyana the Demerara Distillers Limited have provided financial backing for the development of Caribbean boxing with particular regard to a an Under-16 tournament to be held in Georgetown and that type of long term planning can only be good for the future of both the amateur and profession coxing in Guyana. Demerara-looking for a new Sugar I guess. Better finish on that note.

Snips and Snipes 12 November 2015What a contrast. In the same week we had Manny Pacquiao donating $50,000 to a cancer charity organisation. The Filipino star participated in a charity walk and handed over the cheque to a representative of the Cancer Patient Care Society during his visit to the United Arab Emirates. Meanwhile Floyd Mayweather Jr posted a video showing him literally throwing money around at 5.00am at a private party surrounded but women clad in little else except thongs and straps. Pacquiao class in the ring and class outside the ring. Mayweather class in the ring and crass outside the ring. However you can be sure that there will be people down on their hands and knees and willing to forgive anything short of murder to get Mayweather to fight again. The returns for the Pacquiao fight were astounding. Close to 4.6 million buys totalling more than $437 million revenue. Incredible.

​Heavyweights seem to be coming back into vogue-well some are. Obviously the Wlad Klitschko vs. Tyson Fury fight is looming. Klitschko should give Fury a bonus as the big Brit has worked overtime promoting the show but it is a sell out so you can stop clowning now Tyson. Next month will see the much anticipated Anthony Joshua vs. Dillian Whyte fight in London which sold out in just a few hours of the tickets going on sale. Both are big punchers so don’t blink. A lot has been made of White flooring and beating Joshua when they were amateurs but having watched it on You Tube it is irrelevant as both were then such raw novices. Deontay Wilder will be making a title defence on 26 January and he is playing the “Mayweather “game of holding back the name of his challenger with names being thrown around of those that want the next dance. For me Wilder has lost a great opportunity. Since beating Bermane Stiverne he has taken two relatively safe defences and don’t expect the third to be any tougher. As a champion he has so far been a disappointment and the sooner he fights Alex Povetkin the better.

Heavyweight interest in Europe is not confined to Klitschko. Erkan Teper’s defence of his European heavy title against the “Nordic Nightmare” Robert Helenius in Helsinki has already sold 7.500 tickets and is assured of being a sell-out. Things don’t look nearly so good for former champion Bermane Stiverne. The Haitian-born Canadian fights in Las Vegas this weekend against Derric Rossy but Showtime will be taking the fights on the show for Frank Galarza and Sergey Derevyanchenko but not Stiverne. Eighteen months ago he was a world champion now he can’t even get air time-yesterday’s man!

As I said Fury has done a great job of selling the Klitschko fight and nothing sells as well as a real grudge match. That certainly seems to be the case for the fight in Denmark between Patrick Nielsen and Rudy Markussen. These had to be pulled apart at a press conference and the fight is not until 12 December. By then they could have dug trenches and be tossing grenades and it will be another sell out.

In upgrading Adrien Broner to super champion the WBA again show their cynical machinations. At one time to be a “super” champion with the WBA you had to also hold one of the other sanctioning body titles. Messy but some logic to it. Then they realised that it was a dead end as sometimes there were no fighters holding two titles so they were stuck with just a WBA champion. When rules get in the way of sanctioning fees the rules get trodden into the dust so now they create “super” champions under the smallest pretext and free up their secondary title to earn more fees. Then you have the WBA taking away Guillermo Rigondeaux’s title and making him champion in recess just in time for the much anticipated fight between their then secondary champion Scott Quigg and IBF champion Carl Frampton to be a real unification match. Whilst Quigg was only holding their secondary title it could not be a unification title fight but now they have shifted (shafted) Rigondeaux it can be. So the Cuban gets “stripped” for failure to defend since December and there is not even the whisper of any action on Andre Ward who has not defended since November 2013. “Son of God” well I don’t know about that but someone is certainly looking after his interests whilst others get screwed for much less.

In a different way the WBC is also at fault. The late Jose Sulaiman announced that the WBC were discontinuing interim titles as they just caused confusion and they would be replaced by Silver titles. Despite this the WBC are still sanctioning interim title fights and the least they could do is be honest and come out and say they have reversed the policy put in place by Jose and interim title are part of WBC policy as also are Silver titles and Silver Silver titles etc. etc.

I have not yet found the time to ingest all of the WBC Convention reports but I will. There is one very positive thing that has come out of the growth of four major sanctioning bodies and that is their medical and officials meetings/seminars. Before the sanctioning bodies arrived there was no forum for sharing of information of recommendations for change or lessons learned in these areas. For that alone they, but particularly the WBC, have made a major contribution to safety in boxing. It is also good to see some of the top referees going to pass their knowledge to others. Hall of Fame referee Stan Christodoulou has given teach-ins in many countries.

Still on ring officials Kenny Bayless is giving his time to go to Uganda to help launch a project there the “Beyond the Ring” which aims to develop a fund to which both current and former boxers in need can go to for assistance. There will also be a charity boxing show featuring amateurs and professionals with Bayless refereeing some of the fights.

Perhaps Bayless has a future pupil in Vic Darchinyan. The little Australian/Armenian was credited with breaking up a fist fight between Billy Dib and Will Tomlinson. There is genuine bad feeling between the two so a ring fight is a possibility but Vic won’t be allowed to referee that one.

Interested in money. Well according to reports from Argentina Diego Chaves will get $175, 000 when he fights Kell, Brook. At the weekend Tim Bradley was paid $1.9 million and Brandon Rios $800,000 with Vasyl Lomachenko getting $750.000 and his challenger Romulo Koasicha $350,000. If those figures are true then Chaves will be getting more than Rios and Lomachenko combined to fight Brook. Reportedly the Bradley vs. Rios fight garnered 910,000 buys and Lomachenko vs. Koasicha 585,000.

Floyd Mayweather Jr may like girls half dressed at parties but not on the cover of boxing magazines. He criticised Ring Magazine for putting female UFC fighter Ronda Rousey on the front page. It was not clear what was upsetting him most Rousey being a participating in UFC or being female. I have to admit for my own part that I rarely watch women’s boxing but when I have they have mostly been entertaining fights but are just not my thing. However now and then something opens my eyes to some aspects of female boxing. A recent one concerned Bulgarian boxer Galina Ivanova. My mind-set sees people coming into boxing for a variety of reasons but I tend to see this motivation through male eyes. For Galina the impetus was something that anyone could recognise and approve of. Galina is a single mother who is fighting to achieve a better life for her daughter. She started boxing in 1999 and there have been ups and downs but she has been EBU, WBA, GBU and WBC champion but last month lost in Venezuela in an attempt to again win the WBA title. I can’t think of a more worthwhile cause and I truly wish the fighter and mother from Bulgaria every success.

Mexican boxer Nery “Pantera” Saguilan is a colourful character and not just because he wears a panther mask into the ring. The last picture I saw also had him accompanied by two Mexican “bandidos” with Viva Zapata moustaches wearing crossed bandoliers and armed with rifles. If one of his fights is a close decision he would get my vote like a shot.

Antonio Douglas continues to make impressive progress and I am wondering if he goes on to win a world title and his sister Tyrieshia does the same whether it will be the first brother and sister pairing to win world titles. In any case it is good to see them both enjoying success as they were brought up in foster care and life cannot have been easy.

The policy for allocating TV dates in South Africa has descended into farce from the start. Putting aside the court injunction that is being ignored the policy was that each of the nine Provinces would be allocated a TV date that their promoters could bid for. Well the first date was allocated to a promoter in his province and then the South African TV told him to take the show to Johannesburg which makes nonsense of the whole policy. The promoter rightly refused as it would cost him a lot of money to shift the fighters, officials etc. at such short notice and he was finally allowed to promote in his own Province.

When reviewing upcoming fights I see plenty of TBA’s up until less than a week before the scheduled fight which just highlights the easy relationship between the sanctioning bodies and the promoters. If it is not a major fight you can stick anyone at any time as long as you pay the sanctioning fee. Typical is the WBO. They don’t have any European ratings so if a promoter wants to stage a WBO European fight, for the vacant title or a defence, they can pretty well make any match they want which is alarming when you think that winning their European title guarantees the winner a place in the WBO’s top 15 even if his opponent would not make it into the top 100. Quality of an opponent becomes irrelevant.

New Zealand heavyweight Joseph Parker has been impressive in putting away a reasonable level of opposition in gradually more testing fights. That policy seems to have stalled. On 5 December he faces Daniel “The Mountain” Martz who has a 14-2-1 record. Not too bad at first glance but Maiz is tackling the man rated No 6 in the world by the WBO despite Maiz having been stopped in two rounds in April by Grover Young who had an 11-15-1 record at the time. Not much progress there. Also on the Hamilton show will be Polish heavyweight Izuagbe Ugonoh who is 14-0 with 11 wins by KO/TKO.

WBO cruiser champion Krzys Glowacki has reported that his injured left hand is healing and he is aiming to defend his title in January or February. Already making his pitch to be first in the queue is the new IBO champion Ola Afolabi. After three close decision defeats in previous title fight Afolabi finally took the decision out of the judge’s hands with his kayo of Rakhim Chakhkiev. Smart move Ola.

Good to see that Nicolas Walters is returning to action in Verona on 19 December against Jason Sosa. It will be first fight for Walters since losing his title on the scales in June. Sosa has not fought at the same level as Walters but is unbeaten in his last 17 fights so it will be interesting to see how the Jamaican performs.

Amnat Ruenroeng puts his IBF fly title on the line on 7 December in Hua Hin, Thailand against South Korean Myung Ho Lee. I sometimes wonder how far in advance promotions are planned. Lee last fight was on 20 July but he was not in the IBF ratings posted 2 August. Without fighting he suddenly appeared at No 10 in the ratings posted on 2 September. Now if I had a suspicious mind…….. I have called him the Korean sounding Myung Ho Lee but he is actually Japanese and his birth name was Akihiro Miyamoto and his alias is Hayate Akihiro but under any name he has no qualifications as a title challenger. [Ed's note-You did call him Korean Eric!]

A much better flyweight title fight will see Kazuto Ioka defending his WBA secondary title against Argentinian Juan Carlos Reveco. Ioka took the title from Reveco on a hotly disputed decision in April so it is nice to see the WBA do the right thing and get Reveco his chance for revenge.

It is not unusual for winners of a big competition to parade their trophy before their fans in an open bus. They are doing it the other way around in Namibia. Paulus Ambunda and the other Namibian fighters on the 5 December show where Ambunda defends his IBO super bantam title against Australian Jason Cooper will be parading in an open top bus before the fight to encourage their fans to support them.

On 21 November in Hannover German super middle prospect Tyrone Zeuge takes on former European light heavy champion Eduard Gutknecht. Last time out he got a useful win over Nikola Sjekloca so is steadily moving up in class. Also on the show is Juergen Doberstein (19-2-1) who faces experienced Argentinian Ruben Acosta.

A charity boxing show in Ludwigsburg, Germany at the weekend raised quite a bit of money for the charities involved. That was the good news. The bad news is that veteran Danny Williams was trotted out again and lost in four rounds against Luan Krasniqi. I worry about the health of the popular Williams.

A few notes on a show I missed (yes it is possible). In Keta Ghana on 6 November on a landmark Promotions show Braimah “Bukom Banku” Kamoko extended his winning total to 28 wins with a fourth round stoppage of David Okine. It was Kamoko’s first fight for almost 18 months and the rust showed early. The Ghanaian cruiserweight it very popular in Ghana and his fight in May last year with Ayitey Powers drew a record crowd. Powers was also supposed to fight on the show but he failed to turn up. In other bouts undefeated feather prospect Isaac “Royal Storm” Dogboe, 21, won the West African Union title with third round stoppage of John Obliti Commey. The Ghanaian was British ABA champion in 2013 and represented Ghana at the 2012 Olympics. At super welter Obodai Sai halted Gabriel Adoku in two rounds and welterweight Patrick Allotey stopped Fuseini Ahmed in two rounds.

The announcement that Daiki Kameda has retired due to a detached retina in his left eye hopefully might lead to the end of the acrimony between the Kameda clan and the JBC. Koki has also retired leaving only Tomoki carrying the flag for the only family to have three brothers win world titles. Relationships between their father and the JBC hurt boxing in Japan but for Tomoki’s sake I hope the rift will heal.

There was one of those strange inexplicable incidents at the weekend as Italian Giuseppe Brischetto failed to turn up for his challenge to EBU super middle champion Hadillah Mohoumadi. He did not arrive on his scheduled flight to Milan and neither his manager nor his trainer had any idea where he was. He had no right challenging for the title so had to be slipped into the EBU ratings to let it happen but it would have been the biggest opportunity and his biggest payday so very curious. The disappearing Brischetto. Mohoumadi will now have a voluntary defence in Turin on November 28 against a TBA but that is short notice for any challenger.

A few years back when I was at the WBC Convention in Las Vegas I saw an dignified looking elderly man sitting on a chair by the elevators. It took me a second glance to realise it was the great Jose Napoles and it was a pleasure just to exchange a few words with the great man. The Napoles name is still alive in boxing. Angel “Mantequillita” Napoles, 17, the grandson of the former welterweight champion is enjoying success in amateur tournaments and has a 9-0 record with 6 wins by KO/TKO. Early days but who knows one day another Napoles could be hitting the headlines.

If you mention Nottingham and boxing the automatic connection is Carl Froch but boxing in that city goes way way back. A reminder came this week with the final restoration of a statue in the city of William “Bendigo” Thompson. The wear and tear of weather had damaged the statute. Thompson was a real character. He won the “world” heavyweight title in 1839 then retired only to come back and win it again. Thompson loved to fight but not always in the ring. As a result he was jailed 28 times but had a conversion whilst in jail for that 28th time and became an evangelist drawing huge crowds. Now all it needs is a lick of paint to finish the work recognising one of Nottingham’s most famous boxers.

As always a massive thanks to our good friend Eric Armit for his latest Snips and Snipes article.

Snips and Snipes 10 September 2015So this will be Floyd Mayweather’s last fight. Somehow that does not ring true. Over his career Mayweather has been a massive talent and had the ego to match. Taking that into account what great athlete in any sport has ever said that he would be happy to equal an all-time record but had no interest in beating it. Proving you’re the best is what elite athletes are all about and if Mayweather settles for equalling Rocky Marciano’s record that will haunt him for the rest of his life. Of course there is another reason why Floyd is saying this is his last fight. Put simply there is no other way to market the fight. Andre Berto is a good fighter. Not great but good, but not good enough for a fight with Mayweather to be attractive on its own. The only thing that makes Mayweather vs. Berto saleable is the “Floyd’s last fight” tag. I understand that ticket sales etc. have been sluggish and without that last fight tag they would be a lot worse than sluggish. Perhaps Floyd is serious about this being his last fight but he does not strike me as the sort of guy who would walk away one fight short of standing out on his own as the world title holder who retired with the longest unbeaten run. Equal best is not Floyd-only the best will do. An illustration of how the sport has changed over the years is that it will have taken Mayweather just a month short of 19 years to reach his 49 fight total. It took Marciano only 8 years. Fighters fought a lot more often in the in the 1940’s and 50’s. Between 1948 and 1949 Marciano had 24 fights because purses were much small so to make a living you had to fight more often. I have heard people calling for Mayweather to have one more fight after Berto and go up against Gennady Golovkin. There is no way that is going to happen and rightly so. Mayweather started out as a super feather as a pro having won medals at light fly and fly in major competitions as an amateur. The most he has weighed as a pro is 151lbs against Miguel Cotto in 2012. Golovkin is a natural middle having spent the last three years there as an amateur and never weighing below 158lbs. Either Mayweather would end up giving away a lot of weight even at a catchweight or Golovkin would have to saw a leg off. Just no sense in that fight. Manny Pacquiao will fight on but with neither he nor Mayweather talking a return. Bob Arum has thrown the names of Amir Khan, Kell Brook and Terrence Crawford into the ring as future opponent before Pacquiao hangs up his gloves and runs for President in the Philippines. It’s always a smart negotiating tactic to throw plenty of names in as you can play them off against each other to get them to accept a reasonable financial deal. Pacquiao will have to learn a whole new brand of fighting skills if he runs for office. In boxing you only have to worry about punches from the guy in front of you whereas in politics it is a stab in the back you have to watch out for. On the subject of Bob Arum I see that Top Rank are going to work with Chinese sports marketing management company SECA to help with the formation of a boxing league for Chinese fighter “ League of Fists” . The aim is to help the development of pro boxing in China. I could find 185 Chinese boxers in the Chinese ratings. If that sounds good the same check reveals that 169 of those have had less than 5 fights and the majority have had only one or two. Additionally top fighters such Zou Shiming, Rex Tso and Ik Yang are way above this league level so there are very few fighters of any quality to get 224 matches per season as is proposed. Top Rank and SECA had better be committed because this is goiung to be a very long process from such an inexperienced base. Looks as though Juan Manuel Marquez is targeting a return to the ring in December. He has been having discussions with his promoter Fernando Beltran. Marquez is 42 and has not fought since beating Mike Alvarado in May last year. It is a thought that by this time next year Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao and Marquez will probably be ex-fighters when for the last few years they have been the equivalent of the Leonard-Hearns-Duran-Hagler (except then it was four kings) so by 2017 it will be whole new era and it will produce stars of its own some of the current crop who will grow into that role and perhaps some guy who is not even a professional right now or has yet to walk into a gym for the first time will be the one. That’s the exciting thing about boxing the way it regenerates and produces new stars era by era. Juergen Brahmer is not sitting around twiddling his thumbs. Having just had a comfortable win over Konni Konrad at the weekend he has already agreed to put his WBA secondary title on the line against South African Thomas Oosthuizen in Monte Carlo on 7 November. It is unusual these days for a champion to make two defences in just over two months. Despite some poor discipline and some indifferent performances Rodney Berman has shown his commitment to Oosthuizen by getting him this hardly merited title shot. I guess it could be the last chance saloon for Oosthuizen if he fails to make the weight or puts up a poor fight that will try even Berman’s patience. The show is shaping up nicely with British middle Adam Etches facing Japanese fighter Yosuke Kirima and Ricky Hatton’s fighter Khanat Zhakiyanov challenging Yonfrez Perez for the Interim WBA super bantam title. Berman is building a good following for his quality shows from Monte Carlo as a wise precaution. Currently he has a contract with Super Sport in South Africa for TV coverage of his shows which means that he is not directly affected by the South African Sports Ministry defying a court injunction and going forward with their plans to control the allocation of broadcasting of boxing by the State TV body. However a Contact Sports bill has been introduced which will give the Sports Ministry control over all broadcasting rights for all combat sports and Berman has made it clear that if that happens then he will move his base outside South Africa with South African boxers being the ones who will suffer. The aim seems to be for the Sports Ministry to eventually take over the broadcasting rights for all sports in South Africa. Boxing goes on down there in spite of the stupidity of the authorities and in December two of the countries top cruisers will clash as Kevin Lerena faces Johnny Muller. When they fought in November Muller got the unanimous decision but Lerena is confident he can reverse that loss. Good to see Scot Ricky Burns continuing with his boxing career and taking an important step with his challenge for the EBU light title against Finn Edis Tatli on 24 October in Sheffield. The EBU title is a very prestigious title but if he wins Ricky will have to defend against the current mandatory challenger Emiliano Marsili. The Italian is 32-0-1 and hammered Derry Matthews to defeat in seven rounds for the IBO world title in his only visit to Britain in January 2012. After a court case Ruslan Chagaev and Fres Oquendo will finally meet again in a repeat of their fight in July last year when Chagaev won the vacant WBA secondary heavyweight title. There was dispute over whether the wording of the contract for the fight gave Oquendo the right to a rematch and a US Court ruled in favour of Oquendo. The fight will be in Kiel on 17 October with the winner having to defend against Lucas Browne. Former undefeated WBA feather champion Nicolas Walters is set to return to action on a HBO show on 12 December. There was talk of Yuriorkis Gamboa as the opponent but that seems to have faded so no opponent and no venue named yet. It will be interesting to see whether Walters decides to fight at feather again or whether having lost his WBA title on the scales he elects to go up a division. Panamanian Guillermo Jones is looking to return to action on 3 October. Now 43 the former WBA cruiser champion has not fought since beating Denis Lebedev in May 2013 when he reportedly tested positive for a banned substance. Jones contested the findings and return match was scheduled for April last year in Moscow only for Jones to give another positive test before the fight and to fly out of the country. Boxing seems to be the only sport where a positive test is punished with a slap on the wrist. Looks like a good European heavy title fight could be on the cards with Erkan Teper defending against Robert Helenius. Teper won the title with a crushing kayo of David Price in two rounds in July. His mandatory challenger is Dereck Chisora and the EBU site states “parties in negotiation” so that might complicate matters. Swedish-born Finnish star Helenius beat Chisora on a hotly disputed decision in 2011 and was inactive from March 2013 until March this year and has scored two low level wins and is down at No 15 with the EBU. There was an immigration flavour about boxing in Germany last week. We had Konni Konrad fighting Juergen Braehmer. Konni was born Mevludin Cokovic in Montenegro but moved to Germany with his parents and for a while after their arrival the family lived in a container but getting into boxing allowed him to make the money to help the family to a better life with Konrad being the youngest pro in Germany when he joined the paid ranks at 17. We also had Polish-born Sebastian Tlatlik who won the German International super feather title at the weekend. He and his brother Robert moved from Poland to Germany when they were both very young and have found success there. Armenian-born Artem Harutyunyan was himself a refugee at one time and he is doing his bit to help some settle in Germany. The former European Championships bronze medal winner is working at a small basement gym where Syrian refugees are taught the rudiments of boxing as he tries to help them find the path to a reasonable living but just as importantly to give the jobless youth somewhere to come and to learn the discipline that is such an important part of any boxer’s preparing and of life. It was also good to see Amir Khan pledging to help out with the current humanitarian crisis to aid the flood of Syrian refugees in their efforts to escape their war torn country. Khan is also helping boxing in Pakistan by indicating he is ready to bring promising Pakistani boxers over to Britain if they want to visit his academy. On a recent visit to Pakistan he travelled to Lyari where there is an SSB camp where 60-70 boxers will be able to train. Still on helping the young former WBO super fly champion Jose “Carito” Lopez is running a gym in Puerto Rico. The WBO recently donated money to the gym to enable the purchase of a bunch of boxing equipment. A nice gesture from the WBO. Lopez could certainly teach the young to never give up. He won the WBO title at the fifth attempt. He also has the unique underachievement of being the only fighter to lose in a world title fight to a guy who was pulled out of the audience to face him. Well so the myth makers would have you believe. Back in 1999 Lopez was to fight Alejandro Montiel for the vacant WBO title. Reportedly with the show already underway Montiel was unable to go through with the fight. When the promoter was told that Garcia was in the audience they hauled him out and kitted him up with borrowed equipment and he won the fight and the title. A great story but since Garcia was not formally on the show the question arises as to why he weighed in the day before the fight. Garcia went on to win and obviously he was a very late substitute but out of the audience to win-no but the story sounds better that way. There seems to be some sort of growing band wagon supporting Shannon Briggs’ claim to be worth a title shot. There is an old Danny Kaye song about the King having no clothes. Those on the bandwagon should realise that despite all his antics Briggs has no clothes/ valid claim. He has not fought a single opponent who would figure in anyone’s top 100. Back in August 2014 the WBA in their wisdom had Briggs at No 14. For beating Cory Phelps, Richard Carmack and Zoltan Petranyi he has risen to No 5 but then I only expect stupidity from them. What surprises me is those who should know better listening to Briggs shouting and antics and not looking at what he has achieved. If you even take the most cursory look you will see that Briggs has only fought old men, fat old men, has beens, never weres and some who once were but no longer are. Some were impressed by a 30 second clip of him knocking over an overweight Mike Marrone. Well Marrone had been inactive for almost one year and had only one fight in almost four years. He was 30lbs heavier than when he faced Guillermo Jones for the WBA cruiser title in 2011 and that extra 30lbs was all on his waistline. Rating wise BoxRec has Briggs rated No 47 and Marrone No 272! IBO Ratings have Briggs at 45 and only list 100 so Marrone does not even figure in their list. The WBC list 40 heavyweights and Briggs has never fought any of them. He dare not fight a serious opponent because he would be exposed but the mad way this sport is he could shout and scream his way to a title shot without having to fight any opponent with even moderate ability. David Haye and Tyson Fury have cleverly made use of outlandish tactics or outlandish statements but they both had fought and beaten notable opposition. Briggs is conning people and they are falling for it. Good match coming up in Mexico City on 3 October as Jorge Paez Jr takes on Ramon Alvarez. Next fight for world rated light heavy Sean Monaghan will be on October 16 against Don George. Monaghan is rated No 4 by the WBA but has yet to face a rated boxer so let’s hope they put him in a 50-50 fight soon. Julius Jackson will be hoping to follow in dad’s footsteps. The son of Julian Jackson has been paired with Jose Uzcategui in an IBF final eliminator to decide the mandatory challenger to James DeGale. This one will be in San Antonio on 6 October. Fernando Montiel should provide a tough test for Lee Selby when the Brit makes the first defence of his IBF feather title in Glendale Arizona on 14 October. The former WBO fly, super fly and bantam champion is looking to become a four-division champion at the age of 36 and has won his last eight fights. I expect Selby to be too quick for the Mexican veteran but anyone with 39 wins by KO/TKO always has a punchers chance. It was a nice gesture to see Nigerian GOtv presenting to Jonathan Dele with a cheque for 25% of the tickets sales revenue from their show in Lagos last month. Dele spent most of his career based in Barcelona and in his career between 1969 and 1977 ended up with a 40-10-8 record. He beat top boxers of the time in Angel Robinson Garcia and world champion Jose Legra. He won the Commonwealth Boxing Council title by beating Jim Watt on points in Lagos in 1975 and in one of his defences beat world rated Percy Hayles before losing his title to Lennox Blackmore in his last fight in 1977. Dele is suffering prostrate problems and will require surgery so it was nice to see him supported in this way by GOtv and the Nigerian Boxing Board of Control. It used to be part of the advertising for the military to say “Join the Army and see the world”. Well these days it is be a loser and see the world. On last week’s show in Leeds the Latvian cruiser Arturs Kulikauskis was stopped in five rounds by Tony Bellew. It was his fourth visit to the UK but he has also fought in Austria, Russia, French Polynesia, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Ukraine, Poland and Spain. Lucky man. When I worked in the oil and gas industry I did a job where some of the team went to Monaco and I got to go to Harland & Wolff Belfast on a rainy Monday. Next time I’m coming back as a losing boxer it seems to be much more fun.